The Gulf Between Your Internal Life And How The World Sees You | Anna Marie Tendler
Aug 19, 2024
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Anna Marie Tendler, an artist and writer, shares her candid experiences from her 2021 stay in a psychiatric hospital. She discusses the stark contrast between her internal emotional world and societal perceptions. Through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, she learned to embrace discomfort and the painful realities of life, particularly how gender dynamics shaped her experiences. Tendler also highlights the often-ignored emotional struggles in men's lives and the significance of self-acceptance in authentic living.
Anna-Marie Tendler discusses the painful emotional gap between inner feelings and outward appearances, emphasizing the importance of validating internal experiences for mental health.
Through her journey in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Anna-Marie highlights the significance of emotional regulation skills in transforming destructive coping mechanisms into healthier responses.
The exploration of gender dynamics reveals how societal expectations impact personal interactions, driving home the need for awareness in understanding emotional health and relationships.
Deep dives
The Pain of Internal Versus External Perception
The episode delves into the emotional disparity between one's internal feelings and external perceptions, a universal theme that many struggle with. Anna-Marie Tendler discusses her personal experiences, revealing how her internal turmoil, particularly during her marriage's breakdown and subsequent psychiatric hospitalization, contradicted her outward appearance of stability. This disparity can lead to feelings of invisibility and isolation, compounded by societal expectations of high functionality despite personal chaos. The interview emphasizes the importance of recognizing and validating internal feelings, which can be crucial for mental health and emotional well-being.
Understanding Self-Harm and Its Roots
Anna-Marie opens up about her history with self-harm, tracing it back to her teenage years as a misguided coping mechanism for overwhelming emotions. She explains how self-harm provided her with a sense of control during times of emotional turmoil, yet acknowledges that it is a destructive coping skill rather than a solution. By discussing her journey through therapy and understanding why individuals self-harm, she highlights the complexity of emotions and the difficulty many face in expressing them. This exploration sheds light on the need for healthier emotional outlets and coping strategies.
The Transformative Power of DBT
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) emerges as a pivotal theme in Anna-Marie's recovery journey, providing her with essential skills to manage intense emotions. She describes DBT's structure, which includes various modules focused on mindfulness and emotional regulation, allowing her to replace destructive behaviors with healthier responses. By sharing her personal breakthroughs and the benefits of DBT, she emphasizes that it offers life skills applicable to anyone facing emotional challenges, not just those with severe mental health issues. Anna-Marie's experience illustrates how effective therapy can facilitate meaningful emotional growth and healing.
Reflections on Gender Dynamics
Central to Anna-Marie's narrative is the exploration of gender dynamics and her personal experiences with men throughout her life. She discusses how societal norms and expectations surrounding masculinity and femininity shape interactions, leading to misunderstandings and emotional distance. By articulating her frustrations and the disparities she perceives in treatment and behavior based on gender, she encourages greater awareness of how these dynamics affect emotional health. This examination invites listeners to engage with the complexities of gender interactions and their implications for personal relationships.
Learning to Sit with Discomfort
The episode emphasizes the significance of learning to sit with discomfort rather than avoiding it, a theme that resonates through Anna-Marie's story of recovery and personal growth. She shares how her experiences have taught her to acknowledge and process difficult emotions without allowing them to overwhelm her. By cultivating this ability, she has developed resilience in the face of life's challenges, recognizing that feelings such as sadness and anxiety are part of the human experience. This mindset shift is portrayed as essential for achieving both self-acceptance and healthier relationships with others.
We’ve got a fascinating and very personal discussion today about the often very painful gap between the way you feel on the inside and the way the world perceives you. We also cover the urgency and difficulty of sitting with your own discomfort.
Anna Marie Tendler is an artist and writer. She is also the author of a new memoir called ‘Men Have Called Her Crazy’.
In this episode we talk about:
The circumstances of her checking into a psychiatric hospital in 2021
The difference between our interior emotions and our exterior selves
The help she found through Dialectical Behavior Therapy – DBT
We dive into a very specific theme of the book – and its title – the insidious ways in which men have impacted her life.
And lastly, how she found a way to sit with discomfort and pain, while showing up in the world authentically to herself.